GISMONDI, ENRICO. - Jesuit, orientalist, born in Rome on 20 April 1850, died there on 7 February 1912. He entered the Society of Jesus in 1869, and after completing his studies, went to Beirut in Syria, where he remained from 1879 to 1888 (except for a one-year interval spent in Manresa) as professor of theology at the Université Saint-Joseph, while at the same time devoting himself to the study of Oriental languages. He then went on to teach these languages at the Gregorian University in 1888, where he also held the chair of biblical exegesis. From 1910 he also held the chair of Oriental languages at the Istituto Biologico. He was a consultor of the Congregation of the Index and of the Biblical Commission, and contributed articles to several Roman journals.
Original works: *La Bibbia e la sapienza greca* (Rome 1894); *Linguae Syriacae grammatica et chrestomatia cum glossario* (ibid. 1900); *Disciplina linguae Hebraicae* (ibid. 1907); *Linguae Hebraicae grammatica et chrestomatia cum glossario* (ibid. 1905). Latin translations: *Ebed-Jesus Sobensis carminis selecta ex libro «Paradius Eden»* (Beirut 1888; with the Syriac text); *S. Gregori Theologi liber carminum jam-bicornum* (ibid. 1896; with the Syriac text); *Maris, Amri et Silbe de Patriarchis Nestorianorum Commentaria* (3 vols., ibid. 1896-99, with Arabic text).